


Within/without

by outinthewind



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Action/Adventure, Age Difference, Bodyswap, Chronic Pain, Embarrassing Situations, M/M, Mad Scientist's Diary, Pain Management, Personality babble, Politics, Power Play, Psychology, Puberty, Unintentional Invasions of Privacy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:37:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5370506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outinthewind/pseuds/outinthewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward Elric and Roy Mustang switch bodies. Standard disasters--physical, mental, and social--ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ed

**Author's Note:**

> Eh, this will progress to amateur written erotica, by which I mean porn. Unless I get sidetracked by some stupid plot.
> 
> In other news, hello AO3.

Ed snaps to consciousness in an instant, so quickly he can picture his mind’s synapses flashing awake. His memory is quick and succinct: a mission with the bastard, crazy state alchemist trying weird shit in his mansion at Central, rumors of human subjects, rants against the military, the usual depressing shit.

He’d gone with the team, got separated from Havoc and ran into the Colonel; they’d followed the hobbling human-transmuting fucker to a basement, the fucker hadd activated some array Ed didn’t get a chance to process, then _bam!_

Ed thought that maybe the backlash had slammed him against the Colonel.

Now he's on his back, mind sharp but reeling. His body doesn't feel . . . right. It's the proprioceptive equivalent of double-vision. His limbs feel too long, his nose too sensitive, his jaw two . . . something. Nothing hurt.

Nothing hurt and Ed _always_ hurts. His back is fucked from spending adolescence hauling around automail. His belly often gnaws at him because he forgets to eat all the time. His conscience claws at him at least once an hour, as it should considering what he’s done. 

His conscience still hurts, at least.

Only discipline keeps him from moving, from even twitching, in case it alerts the psycho that he’s come to. He tries not to think about what might’ve happened to Mustang, and focuses his ears. He doesn’t feel like he hears right either, but at least he can tell when the wind beats against the tiny window near the basement ceiling.

No one talks. Nothing moves. The sharp stink of ozone permeates the air, and it’s disturbing it took Ed so long to recognize it.

“Fuck,” he breathes when he’s satisfied he’s alone, then his heart skips a beat.

That’s not his voice.

“Fuck,” he repeats, loud and clear.

That’s _not his voice_. He doesn’t recognize that voice.

He sits up, feeling an eerie psychological vertigo though he doesn’t lose balance, and starts looking around. His eyes fall on the standard military boots, on his-- _his?_ \--feet. That’s not right. He never wears the uniform, that butt-skirt thing looks too stupid. 

“What the fuck?” he says, and the strange voice coming from his throat startles him once more.

He stands up, has to close his eyes because his body is . . . longer than he expects and it’s making him a little dizzy, then he puts his hands together to make a fire. Mostly, he taught himself fire alchemy to wave his expertise on Mustang’s face, but he’d found the crap to be a million times more useful than he expected, though he wouldn't ever risk using it in combat. 

The array is intact on the wall, though the fucker alchemist is nowhere to be seen. The sight of its fluid swirls and sharp angles stops Ed in his tracks. The instantaneous understanding he’s used to doesn’t come. Instead he glares at the wall, bits and pieces of the array’s meaning swimming around in his mind without definitive connections: there’s a primary circle at its backbone representing the human mind, a shoppy half-symbol of the universal array for a human body tethered to it, and random lines representing connections that Ed cannot decipher. And Ed can always decipher an array.

Is the array that shitty, or did Ed suffer some kind of brain damage?

Frowning, he tears his gaze from the array and looks around. He catches a glimpse of gold and spends a few uncomprehending moments staring at the body on the floor before the significance of the red jacket and leather boots hits him.

That’s him on the floor. That’s Ed. 

He almost throws up, honest-to-God gags before he can force his awkward limbs to stride to the body on the floor. For the first time, he notices that his hands are covered by white gloves. 

It’s not so hard to put it together in context, he thinks as he kneels to his-- _his!_ \--body. The fucker’s array was meant to connect minds and the shit that Ed--Mustang?--couldn’t decipher must have been meant to . . . shit. That old fucker had been pushing seventy, which Ed supposes is old, and not in the way he likes to tease the bastard about. 

His hand pauses on its way to his--holy shit, _his body_ on the floor. What if . . . what if Mustang’s not there?

He sighs when he notices the . . . _his_ chest rising and falling evenly. It--he’s breathing, which can only be a good sign. Ed’s heart (not Ed’s heart) beats a little slower, though Ed frowns down at his face. His body doesn’t look . . . is that what other people see when they look at him? Has Ed always been so . . . pretty? Has his hair always been that shiny?

That’s a stupid thought. Ed shakes his head, almost shakes the body awake, then pauses. Assuming that Mustang’s . . . consciousness or whatever is now in Ed’s body ( _please_ let it be in Ed’s body), how would he react if he woke and saw his own stupid face glaring down at him? 

Probably violently, but Ed needs to make sure he’s okay-ish before the old fucker comes back and finds them. He reaches down to his own shoulder and shakes it.

“Bastard,” he says, trying not to wince at how strange Mustang's voice sounds from the inside. “Wake up! Bastard!”

It takes a few seconds, long enough that Ed worries that Mustang might not be in the body, then Mustang makes a pitiful noise and tries to push Ed’s hand away. 

“Bastard!”

Ed’s body finally opens its eyes and what happens next would be funny in any other circumstances. Mustang’s eyes widen, he makes a shrill noise that Ed refuses to believe could come from his throat, then he makes a snapping motion with Ed’s non-metal fingers and tries to scuttle away.

“What in the wo--” Mustang gasps, like the sound of his words is making his brain freeze.

“It’s a body-switch array,” Ed says, unable savor the satisfaction of seeing Mustang scrambling to make sense of a situation for once. Mostly because it’s like seeing himself.

“Oh my God,” says Mustang, reaching for his--Ed’s belly. He freezes when he looks down at Ed’s automail.

Ed has to look away. Much to his surprise, he can stop himself from swallowing reflexively at a wave of shame. Mustang shouldn’t have to know what it feels like to be half-automail, and Ed has no right to even a second in a body that’s healthy and whole. Not while Alphonse is stuck in a suit of armor.

“What’re we going to do?” asks Mustang, voice small.

Ed refuses to consider that might be his body’s fault. “First, we get out of here before the fucker--”

“--Miles Frankhert, the Mind-Weaving Alchemist,” Mustang reminds him.

“Sure,” says Ed, not as annoyed by the interruption as he should be. “We get out before he finds us, and get in touch with your people. Then we figure out how to reverse this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The goal is weekly updates, 1-1.5k words in length.


	2. Riza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap!!! Thanks for the overwhelming support. Considering how smallish this fandom is by now, I didn't think I'd attract this much attention (I promise that if I can't deliver on the rating by 10k words, I'll downgrade this and apologize for false advertisement).

Riza has spent most of her adult life, and some of her not-so-adult life, reading Roy Mustang's micro-expressions. It's disconcerting to see Fullmetal putting the man's facial muscles through the gamut of human frowns, glares, and huffs, almost like she's seeing something pornographic. It should not be so simple to glean what 'Colonel Mustang' is feeling.

"Stop doing that with my face," snaps Roy. Fullmetal's voice cracks on the word _face_ , accentuating the absurdity of the command.

" _You_ stop doing that with _my_ face," retorts Fullmetal.

Riza sighs.

"This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me," says Roy.

"Colonel," says Riza, trying to warn him with the single word. This is affecting him, she can tell. He's acting more . . . not more like Fullmetal, exactly. More like a _teen,_ which might actually be worse.

"To _you?_ " Sadly, the phenomenon did not bless Fullmetal with maturity. "I'm the one stuck with your stupid brain, wasting time with this fucked up array when I should be looking for a Philosopher's Stone."

"This bickering," Riza interrupts, "which you both have been indulging for hours now, will not resolve this problem."

For a moment, they both look cowed. Roy all but stomps his foot and Fullmetal, twisting Roy's eyebrows into the most petulant frown Riza's ever seen, looks out the window and out into the veranda at the back of Roy's home.

It took more finesse than Riza likes to employ without forethought, but she managed to coordinate all military activity at Frankhert's home without making Roy look like he was out of control. She thanked every bullet she owned that the overwhelming majority of soldiers, regardless of their rank, didn't know the first thing about alchemy. A few words about the delicate nature of Frankhert's dangerous arrays, and the brass had been happy enough to leave the Flame Alchemist and his most gifted subordinate to the task of examining the mess of dusty notes in the basement without any questions about Colonel Mustang's uncharacteristic quietness.

At least Fullmetal had managed to look serious enough while going through Frankhert's notes, reading faster than Riza thought Roy capable of. It probably hadn't been acting.

"Fighting will not help either of you reverse this," says Riza, refusing to entertain the possibility that, like most alchemy involving humans or living things in general, it couldn't be reversed. "And if we can't stick to a plan, reversing it will be the least of our problems."

"I should be with Al," says Fullmetal, not for the first time. "Nobody would think it's weird if he stays here too; we're always together."

"Someone needs to go through Frankhert's mansion," says Riza, "and make sure there's nothing else there that might help us."

"Then I should be there too!"

"We went through this," says Roy. "Who knows what'll happen if we stray too far away from each other, and mouths will flap if I--if _my body_ is seen slaving over nonsense ramblings in the dead of night with my subordinate's brother."

It's almost comical to see Roy's face burn pink in the lamplight, not so different than the usual rage that mars Fullmetal's face when he's arguing with Roy.

Riza doesn't want to leave them alone in Roy's house. She fears for their safety, and not just because they have no idea what will happen as time progresses and their minds remain stuck in different brains. With their personalities so affected, they might get into a physical altercation and ruin some of Roy's tasteful furniture. Or worse, each other's bodies.

"I don't care what people say," declares Fullmetal.

"You should," says Riza firmly. Fullmetal shoots her a glare but doesn't dare argue. "The military brass is fascinated by alchemical weapons, and I can't think of any infiltration array with more potential than one that would allow us to dispatch a spy into an enemy's home wearing a family member's face."

"That's sick; who would volunteer for that?" demands Fullmetal.

Roy snorts.

Riza ignores him. "The army is not lacking people without morals, Edward," she says, deliberately using the boy's name. "No matter how long it takes to solve this, the brass _cannot_ know."

"It won't take long," says Fullmetal. Not even Roy's deep baritone can mask the uncertainty in his tone.

"Lieutenant," says Roy, sounding even more scared.

"Luckily, it's Friday," she says. "We have at least two days of limited scrutiny at the office. If things are not resolved by Sunday evening, we'll have to regroup and reassess, but for now I will handle things in public." Already, she's considering how long Roy could stay home if he caught a bad, but not serious, strain of influenza.

"And the pensions bill?" asks Roy.

"We have two full weeks until you need to argue that at the tribunal," says Riza. "In the meantime, I'll keep fostering political support."

"It'll be fixed before that," insists Fullmetal. Though he sounds more confident, Riza is not reassured.

She leaves them not soon after, Roy tilted to the right in a way that makes it obvious that Fullmetal's right side is heavier than his left. Fullmetal is hunched in on himself, his posture abysmal, somehow fading into the sepia tones of Roy's wallpaper. Beside them is a tall pile of Frankhert's notebooks, but neither alchemist seems eager to go anywhere near them. It's perhaps the worst sign of all.

Riza gets in touch with Havoc the moment she reaches her apartment. He reports that Alphonse is absorbed by the papers remaining in Frankhert's dilapidated mansion, but has not said a word all evening.

What a goddamned disaster. It couldn't have happened at a worst time. Roy is just starting to gain support outside the petty political circles of the military, and Fullmetal . . . he's a brilliant boy, but Riza has zero confidence that he could be coached in the backtalk and posturing necessary for military power plays. Even if he wasn't consumed by a quest to restore his brother, Riza doubts he could ever take Roy's mantle in the military's farce for any significant period. The boy is too blunt, his conscience pristine when compared to theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like Riza, but I doubt I did her character justice.


	3. Roy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the crappy tenses here. Someday I'll write a beautiful masterpiece of fanfiction with tense variations only for snoothy stylistic purposes. But for now I'm screwing around.

Roy can't find a comfortable position. He's lying in his bed, squirming as he tries to convince himself that he's _not_ clenching Fullmetal's-- _his_ automail hand into a tense fist. He moves the fingers, trying to marvel at how smoothly the hand follows his command, as smoothly as his flesh hand, but that doesn't matter. Not as much as the dull pulse of pain gripping the back of his neck, his spine, and his hips.

Is Fullmetal ever _not_ in pain?

Well, he isn't now.

Roy grunts, rolls over, and glares at the blackness between him and his ceiling. Whatever he might be feeling, Fullmetal doesn't seem to be doing any better. They'd huddled together over his table, Frankhert's notes scattered between them, and Fullmetal had seemed seconds away from banging his head against a wall until he fractured his skull.

"Why's this so fucking _difficult_?" he'd cried.

As far as Roy can guess, it probably has something to do with his body's brain being not quite as clever as Fullmetal's. But he hadn't been about to admit that to the insufferable brat, so he'd just tried to use he's newly-acquired genius cerebrum to crack Frankhert's notes. And found that he just didn't care about them. He cared about the upcoming hearing, about how abysmally Fullmetal would destroy all Roy's efforts on those damned pensions.

The arrays and equations were simple enough, if inelegant at points and too crude at others, but what Frankhert had been trying to is impossible. A human mind cannot be transferred to another body, which would effectively render a person immortal, without repercussions. People aren't _just_ their bodies . . . but mostly, they kinda are.

Fullmetal had found a page suggesting that the price of "Body-Switching Alchemy", as Frankhert had dubbed it, required a human life to satisfy equivalent exchange. They'd considered it for a bit and decided that life had probably been Frankhert's. Reversing the array, even if Roy and Fullmetal worked together to clean it of all fripperies and clunky lines, would undoubtedly require another life.

Roy had seen his own face overcome by naked despair at the realization, and somehow mustered enough tact to suggest they try to sleep. Nevermind that his own ambitions would be crushed if it turned out, God help them, that he and Fullmetal were stuck in each other's bodies.

With a grunt filled with physical as well as emotional pain, Roy tosses to his side. By chance, he lands in a position that stretches the muscles between his shoulder blades in a way that eases the tension in his neck. After a moment of hesitation, he shifts more, until his body is twisted so that most of his weight presses down on the automail. It can't be doing much good for the automail, but the fleeting comfort is so delicious that Roy can't bring himself to straighten. He falls asleep in that position, thoughts swimming between his predicament, and why he's not as devastated by it as he should be. It's not like he can count on Fullmetal learning the type of skills needed for political intrigue, even if Fullmetal gets a personality transplant and suddenly starts giving a shit.

Roy wakes face down when a beam of sunlight hits his eyelids. First, he notices the strands of golden hair over his face and lips and wonders if he got drunk and brought someone home with him, a mistake he hasn't made in years. Then the pressure in his knee hits him, like there are knives of icepicks jammed in the joint on every side. Roy whimpers, the memories of the previous evening flooding him.

He doesn't know how long the pain paralyses him, but eventually he thinks that maybe he somehow messed up Fullmetal's automail in the night. With another whimper, he tries flexing the knee. It moves, but the pain doesn't seem to lessen. For fuck's sake. Fullmetal doesn't even have a knee joint there anymore.

Unwilling to wake Fullmetal with automail complaints for as long as it's functional, Roy starts doing some breathing exercises. He tries focusing on other parts of his body, then notices something that is, in its own special way, more terrible and humiliating than the excruciating knee pain. Fullmetal's body has a morning erection.

Roy lays on the bed, breathing exercises forgotten and knee still pulsing. He isn't aroused, exactly. Just erect. But. But . . . Fullmetal is a teenager, and an orgasm might just be intense enough to distract Roy from the pain, which shouldn't be Roy's problem in the first place.

 _Bullshit, Mustang,_ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Maes whispers into his mind. _There's no way to justify putting your grubby mitts on a sixteen-year-old penis._

Technically, he had done it already. To urinate. He'd done it without thinking, without even looking down much except to aim, and the experience had been relatively painless. What else could he do? Hold in the piss until Fullmetal's bladder exploded?

Of course, a man--even a teenager--could abstain from masturbation. Roy bet it wouldn't even be that uncomfortable after a while, not that he'd ever tried to deprive himself.

It didn't matter. Even if Roy could somehow talk himself into disregarding the possible skeevy violation, he has never in his life felt less like jerking off. Sighing, Roy forces himself out of bed, telling himself that the knee pain _did_ improve a little while he debated with himself about whether or not he could molest Fullmetal's body.

No, definitely not. Besides, Fullmetal lives with the automail every day. And unless they run into some miracle in Frankhert's notes, Roy might have to from now on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh . . . at least I hinted at sex this time?


	4. Ed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning at endnotes.

Ed is trying very hard to be reasonable. Mustang's body is not to blame for the usual smarmyness of its usual consciousness . . . it's better not to think too closely on that, or he'll drown in the absurdity of it all. The point is that Mustangs's body needs to be taken care of. It needs to be fed, cleaned, hydrated, and rested. It probably needs to be exercised as well. Fine. Good. Ed can do all that.

The cleaning requires more touching than Ed is comfortable with. He'd pissed without thinking--except Mustang's dick is bigger than expected, but Ed ignores that. He'd eaten all that Mustang suggested, including more vegetables than a human should ever need. He'd even agreed to go to bed when Mustang whined, in a voice that Ed still doesn't recognize as his, that they wouldn't accomplish anything without proper sleep. Now he's standing under a showerhead, loving the way warm water sluices over his skin. Mustang's body feels at home. Judging by the number of scented soaps and bubbly stuff in the counter, the bastard doesn't spare a single thing when it came to baths. What is he, some sort of _girl_?

Clearly not, considering the cock on him.

Ed grimaces. He shifts under the showerhead, steals a glance towards the soap, and sighs.

He would have to rub the soap all over Mustang's skin, and not just the innocent parts like his shins and forearms. He'd have to touch Mustang's thighs, his chest and nipples, between his legs and behind his balls. Ed had done it with his own body countless times, and now he's afraid that the mere act of showering will turn him on. That he would turn on a body that isn't even his to turn on. What is is his life?

Ed's not dumb. He knows how old he is, what's happening to his body in regards to testosterone and fertility. He knows he's supposed to be a bundle of stupid, overly sensitized nerves, that the mere sight of someone attractive should be enough to send him into overdrive (though technically, _Mustang's_ body is the finished product and should be past all that nonsense).

Regardless, Ed's not allowed to go around doing the stupid teenage shit he would be doing if her hadn't fucked up and trapped his brother in an unfeeling suit of armor. He just doesn't get to do it. He doesn't get to even think about Winry, or anyone, or _anything_. If he could, he'd short-circuit all his nerves to keep himself from feeling. Or better yet, switch places with Al.

For an instant, he thinks about how this array could help Al and decides it's better to just think about how he needs to stop himself from having any kind of sex, even the lonely, pathetic kind.

His stupid body and his stupid hormones refuse to get the memo. Ed hates sleeping, or at least the nights when he gets dreams full of intense pleasure instead of the nightmares he deserves. He hates waking up to a pleasant buzz between his legs. He hates it even more than he hates eating when Al has to keep a list of shit he wants to taste someday. Or rather, he hates himself for loving being alive so much.

As compromise, Ed allows one stupid crush: Colonel Roy Mustang. It's strategic. Ed actually kinda genuinely hates Mustang the human being, though he doesn't pretend not like Mustang the physical specimen. Not anymore. And Mustang hates him too. Sometimes, Ed fantasizes about what a miserable, smug bastard Mustang would be if he knew that when Ed fumes in front of him, he secretly imagines what it would feel like to sneak under Mustang's desk and put his mouth all over--

Anyway. The point is that Mustang makes up ninety-nine percent of Ed's jerking-off material, to the point where Ed feels a little like he's psychically violating the bastard. And now, because life hates him almost as much as he hates himself, he's stuck in the body that stars in all his fucked up fantasies. Except the Mustang of his dream is not quite so wide and doesn't have so much body hair. It should be be gross. But is isn't. Ed wants to play with the dark curls over Mustang's chest even though it's technically _his_ chest now. He's fucked up.

With a groan, Ed grabs the soap. He starts cleaning himself while chanting the elements in his head, then he chants them backwards. He cleans Mustang's genitals with his eyes closed, deliberately ignoring any and all feelings from that area. The good news is that he's too embarrassed to register much of it, much less try to memorize just how _thick_ . . . Ed swallows, stands under the stream for a few more seconds, then rushes out of the tub and reaches for the towel. He needs to dry himself, to wipe the vulnerable bliss off Mustang's wet skin.

If it was his own body, he'd slap himself. Al is waiting for him. Hopefully, he'll have found something in the fucker state alchemist's notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahah. I am the worst. Warning for Ed's self-loathing and fucked up sexual fantasies. Also, this is way too short. My bad.


	5. Alphonse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I return! Tough week at work! Don't feel like writing smut, but something is better than nothing for Christmas, right?
> 
> TW at end notes

Frankhert's array, the single one the man appeared to have worked on for decades, offends Al in a way that he can't describe. There he sits, his consciousness frozen in that terrible moment when a person has realized that their limb has fallen asleep, but before they start the painful process of shaking it awake. His whole body exists, but it does not feel. He is the absence that defines existence. Sometimes, he wants to shake Ed awake and scream that he thinks maybe, just _maybe_ , he isn't real. That the world isn't real.

Only determination to keep Ed's tsunami of guilt and self-loathing at bay makes Al keep still and wait for the sun to rise.

Al would give anything for his body back, and not just the good parts of it. He misses the way he rolled to an awkward position in his sleep and woke up with a stinging neck. He misses how his belly got hollow and churny if he threw caution to the wind and drank milk. He even misses the spring days when wind blew pollen into his nose and made it swell up until he had to open his mouth to breathe even though it got his throat all scratchy and dry.

Al suspects that a clergyman would feel the same disgust he's feeling as he reads Frankhert's incensed rants about his aging body.

_Today, I sprained my back trying to drag the hooker to the middle of my array. The stupid whore blubbered so hard that her snot mixed with my chalk and ruined the design before I noticed. I didn't manage to do anything to her mind, much less transfer it to the stray mutt I lured to my house. She blew, and pieces of her are still stuck on my basement wall._

_Worst of all, I can't very well clean with this fucked up back, can I? I couldn't even risk going to the hospital because the last thing I need is the military to send some idiot to check on one of their prized State Alchemists. It's not like I could use them for my experiments since the military does not stand for desertion and would go searching for him._

_I can't stand this much longer. I will not suffer the indignities of a old body. My mind is too sharp. It cannot go the way my strength did. I cannot degenerate to the point where I'm pissing in the hallway like my father was during the last years of his life. I cannot. My back needs to heal, or I'll have to hire some dumb artist to draw my circles. One who wouldn't be missed if I decide to use them in the next phase of my experiment._

If Al had a mouth, he would gag. But he doesn't, so he reads the madman's notes and tries to make sense of the way his entire consciousness feels as though it's been dipped in snot.

The second day is not much better than the first. Frankhert's diary contains no more than whiny ramblings. The bastard was careful to keep even speculations about the array to himself, though Al works out that before trying to shift human minds, he tried to force a human's consciousness into a dog's body.

The why, on the other hand . . . Al can't imagine what it would be like to be that dumb. The differences between a dog brain and a human brain are much, _much_ more pronounced than the differences between two different humans' brains. The trick with a human and an animal would be much more complicated, so why did Frankhert try the dog-human transfer as "practice" for his ultimate human-human transfer?

At the end of the day, despairing at the useless and wasteful swirls in Frankhert's designs, Al trudges to the Colonel's home in the suburbs. His metal body clunks with every step he takes, prompting some people to walk out from the picturesque homes to gawk at the armored fool invading their neighborhood. He hopes they don't call the military, and tries not to wish there was a way he could walk without making a sound.

Thankfully, it's easy enough to pretend to be calm when the Colone-- _Ed_ opens the door to the Colonel's house. It's not like he has facial expressions to watch out for. Since the armor, Al's voice comes out flat unless he puts great effort into every syllable. Talking is exhausting, but he notices how much Ed worries when he doesn't put in the effort to imitate the tenor of a normal human voice.

"Did you find anything?" asks Ed, making the Colonel sound uncharacteristically nervous.

"I think Frankhert was trying to map out the electricity of a human brain," says Al because it's better than _I'm baffled that you and the Colonel didn't explode when that array activated_. "Where you and the Colonel touching when it happened?"

"I don't even remember," says Ed, pulling Al towards a pretty living room with cream couches and deep brown rug. It all looks nice, but like it's from a magazine. Like no one lives there. "Where's Colonel Mustang?"

It's a trip and a half to see the Colonel's pale skin turn ripe as a tomato. "We decided it'd be better to work from separate rooms."

So they had a fight, or . . . "Brother, you feel alright in the Colonel's body?"

Frankhert's ramblings do not inspire confidence. For all Al knows, both Ed and the Colonel are fraying at the edges and being close to each other might somehow make it all worse. Or being far away from each other is making things worse and the two babies need to get over their differences and have as much contact as possible.

Ed sniffles, then lays his head on Al's shoulder. It's strange to see Ed's body language on the Colonel's body, and frightening to imagine that the body switch has been so painful or disturbing that Ed is willing to spill the beans to Al without argument.

"It feels nice," Ed says miserably. "I'm not in pain anymore. I'm sorry, Al."

"I'm not mad, Brother," says Alphonse, almost forgetting to pat his dead hand over Ed's shoulder. More comfort that he cannot feel. "I don't want you to hurt. It's okay if you get a break."

"It's not okay," protests Ed.

No, it doesn't feel okay. But Al knows that sometimes, feelings are small and nasty. He refuses to make Ed feel worse than he already does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Al reads from the villain's notes, where the guy makes comments about how he kidnapped and murdered a sex worker. Slurs towards sex workers used.


	6. Roy

"You know," Roy tells Fullmetal Sunday evening after an unsatisfactory dinner, "there's no real reason you can't make an appearance at Headquarters tomorrow."

"You mean besides my hating the military with every fiber of my being, and not knowing what exactly it is you're supposed to do in the first place?"

"The Lieutenant wouldn't let you make a fool of yourself," insists Roy. "All you'd have to do is show up and sign anything she tells you to sign."

"I don't even know how to fake your signature."

"I have a signature stamper."

"You are _such_ a fucking bureaucrat," snaps Fullmetal. "Maybe if you'd spent less time stamping reports, chasing tails, and smiling vapidly at politicians, you'd have read a few more alchemy textbooks and I would be a little smarter right now."

Any other time, Roy could have stumped on the flare of humiliated rage that Fullmetal's words inspire, but the brat's body jumps on any and all opportunities to explode. "I'm reading this with your supposedly unparalleled frontal lobe, yet you don't see me blaming you for not coming to an instantaneous solution."

"Only because you're too dumb," insists Fullmetal.

"The way you talk, it's like you haven't restored your brother's body out of laziness."

Fullmetal throws the journal he's reading at Roy's head. Roy ducks, then slides from his chair, Fullmetal's automail all but ready to lock on him. It looks like Fullmetal--in Roy's body, which has never looked so big--is ready to pounce on him and punch his face until his skull caves in. At the last moment, Fullmetal lets out a pained huff, then whirls around and leaves the living room. His steps stomp on the stairs, and the door to Roy's bedroom slams shut.

Roy stands frozen, focused on the candlelight. A drop of wax slides down the white candle, and he lets out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. It was a nasty thing to say, but it seems that Fullmetal's body is not about to give up its indignation. _He_ started it and all that.

Roy sits down, his automail--shit. Fullmetal's. _Fullmetal's_ automail feeling stiff and painful. He cannot-- _cannot_ \--start thinking of Fullmetal's body as his. That would be tantamount to surrendering.

He sits at the table for a few more minutes, trying to work up the drive to climb the stairs (always painful in Fullmetal's blasted automail) to apologize. He's not sure how much it'll help, but he knows he needs to keep Fullmetal from spiraling into a depressed hole. He gets up, tries not to cringe every time he has to put weight on his automail knee with every step to the second floor, and stares at his own bedroom door. Who's idea was it again that Roy's body might be more comfortable if it got to sleep in its own bed? All right, it was his, and how dumb it was.

Roy knocks on the door, waits a few moments, then walks in. Fullmetal is face down on the bed, head buried on Roy's pillow. "Fuck off," he says. It comes out muffled.

"Don't suffocate me," says Roy.

Fullmetal lifts his head, glares at Roy in a way that makes his body look like a petulant teenager.

"Look," says Roy. Then he shifts and lets out an indignant huff. "I spoke without thinking. Your body's just . . ."

"Oh, so it's my fault you're an asshole?"

Roy sighs, takes the last few steps to his bed and sits down on the edge. Fullmetal straightens and scuttles away until his back is to the headboard. He hugs his knees to his chest, making Roy grimace at the sight of his body looking so . . . childish. Well, Fullmetal _is_ still a kid. Psychologically, if not physically. And Roy is _psychologically_ and adult, even if his body is a trainwreck of rage and hormones.

"We can't go on blaming each other every time we can't do something we used to be able to do," he tells Fullmetal, aiming for a reasonable tone. Hard to say if it worked since he's not used to hearing his thoughts come out of Fullmetal's throat.

"I know," says Fullmetal.

"All right," says Roy. "I'll . . . leave you alone then."

"I was thinking," says Fullmetal without looking at him. "Maybe I will go to the office tomorrow. Take a book or something, and let the Lieutenant do all the talking."

"Maybe that _isn't_ a good idea," says Roy.

"No, you were right," insists Fullmetal. "I can't have people being all suspicious. Last thing Al needs is us running because the military wants to turn us into guinea pigs, so it's better if I don't waste your vacation days. We might need them later."

"All right," says Roy. "I'll call the Lieutenant and see what she thinks. Then I'll come back and teach you how to stand."

"How to _stand_?"

"Your posture is atrocious," says Roy. "My back hurts just looking at you."

"That's not why it hurts."

"Right," says Roy. He stands awkwardly for a few seconds, then heads back downstairs for the telephone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short as hell again, and not even a hint porn. Not even a hint of erotica. I fail at this. Maybe I should just write gen.


End file.
